


(Un)Handsome

by Vinsachi



Category: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 20:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17884898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinsachi/pseuds/Vinsachi
Summary: Dixon tries to look into the mirror as seldom as possible. He has almost learned to shave by touch, without dragging his eyes away from an old sink with yellow flaked enamel. Learned to avoid reflections in shop and car windows. Not to hold his look on a shiny (the paint has peeled up completely) aluminum kettle.





	(Un)Handsome

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [(Не)красивый](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/459020) by Твоя тёмная сторона. 



Dixon tries to look into the mirror as seldom as possible. He has almost learned to shave by touch, without dragging his eyes away from an old sink with yellow flaked enamel. Learned to avoid reflections in shop and car windows. Not to hold his look on a shiny (the paint has peeled up completely) aluminum kettle.

 

Well, he has never considered himself a handsome guy. His mother has never told a boy ‘my cupcake’, never repeated ‘you must have dozens of chicks pining away after you’, but yet didn’t scold with those endless ‘comb your hair, it’s a mess’, ‘tack that shirt in, you little scarecrow’, ‘get your nails done, scank’ - nothing of that usual moms’ stuff. She didn’t lie and left him to his own devices, and Dixon thought of himself as of a normal guy.

 

He thought so before getting into a hospital, before getting unbandaged for the first time. Later, during these routine procedures, he could almost hear the words ‘Scars make men handsome, Dixon’ in a voice of sheriff Willoughby, but he was ready to answer, no, just not these scars. Just not so many of them.

 

Leaning his elbow on the adman’s table, Dixon is pensively looking upon the walls bedecked with numerous posters, signs and inscriptions. Fresh wind is blowing into an open, newly glazed window, easing the midsummer heat.

 

‘Managed to find a cold one’, said Welby with a smile, passing him a sweaty bottle of dark beer. Dixon accepts is with gratitude, having noticed again that the adman looks upon him with no unease, and yet with no repulsion, looks upon his still aching scars. If  Dixon had a possibility, he would try to hide them; yet, gloves may be a way out for hands, just not in a heat like today, but there’s no way for him to wear a mask.

 

It’s not easy to enjoy the first sip on the gase, and Dixon is asking a bit huffily, turning with his right side – now there’s only the right side all the time -

 

‘What?’

 

Welby shrugs, still smiling, dives his hand into red hair, breathes in deeply, as if this gonna perk him up, stands still with his lips parted for a moment or two, and, finally, utters:

 

‘Know what Dixon, you are…’

 

_…Helping Mildred in a shop when her assistant called in sick; a book taken from Welby himself and being read slowly, with breaks for comic books, yet not abandoned; caring of his mother when nobody seems to see them; forgotten words ‘black person’ and ‘colored person’; words ‘sorry’ and ‘thanks’, newly learnt and uttered whole-heartedly; the cleaned up ad agency, ready to welcome Welby after the hospital; that very bar brawl started with the purpose to grab the criminal’s DNA sample, and a wish to save the case of Angela Hayes from fire which was the start of all these things…_

 

      ‘…you are very handsome.’


End file.
